The Holy Spirit in Jesus: Spiritual master on the path of Lent

On the Lenten journey we come from the desert to Calvary, and from this place of consummation of the heart of Christ for men, We move on to that consumption charis-matica which is a mission and task for the life of the Church.

— Pastoral current events —

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Cap.

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On the first Sunday of Lent It traditionally reads the evangelical pericope of the temptations of Jesus in the desert.

The three synoptic Gospels, including the most synthetic Marco, they agree in underlining an important thing and that is that Jesus is pushed into the desert by the Spirit, To be attempted by the devil. This story represents a strong moment that qualifies the identity of Jesus, since he, full of the Holy Spirit, will inaugurate them a little by the year of jubilee grace (cf.. LC 4,18-19), While his works will make the good news that frees and heals those poor people who tremble the kingdom of God. But there can be no year of grace - there is no real Jubilee - without the firm proposal to put an end to the kingdom of Satan and his works. In Jesus Christ this promise is fulfilled (cf.. LC 10,18), It is in his baptism to the Giordano that the victory over evil starts, which will have a first moment of combat in the agon of the desert and will then culminate on the Golgotha ​​at that time fixed (cf.. LC 4,13) which is chair of salvation for every man.

As already anticipated, The narrative frame also determines the interpretative reading key of that passage of temptations. It is placed after the baptism to the Giordano, At the moment of the Father's Theophany through which he solemnly recognizes his son, The Messiah and the Prophet full of the Fire of the Holy Spirit. It is not exegetically daring to see here a passage of witness between John the Baptist - the one is the prophet of fire (cf.. Mt 11,14; 17,12; Sir 48,1)- and Jesus, the one who possesses the fullness of the fire of the Holy Spirit. This spirit pushed over Christ will remain permanently on him and, how the Gospels remember, Three times during his earthly life he consecrates his life and the public ministry.

The first time in the womb of the Virgin Mary, first altar on which Jesus is greased by the Holy Spirit (cf.. Mt 1,20); The second one is precisely the one in the Giordano river; The third will take place on the cross, where Christ, dying gives the Holy Spirit to the world (cf.. GV 19,30). And that last sigh will be prelude to the effectiveness of the Holy Spirit who will communicate to the Apostles on Easter Sunday (cf.. GV 20,21-22).

Focusing on the second anointing O pneumatological consecration of Jesus to the Jordan, we notice how he, in that circumstance, It unites the whole human lineage to itself, whose nature shares it, the joys, hopes and suffering. In the embrace of the Holy Spirit with Jesus, his profound identity is revealed that, then, through the sacraments, It will be communicated by the Church to men and that Pauline theology expresses in the letter to the Galatians: «God has sent the spirit of his Son shouts in our hearts: Abbà, Dad!» (Gal 4,6). A donate spirit, so, To recognize his Father and his Son Jesus, Lord and Salvatore Our, which also performs the action to lead men to Jesus, so that they are united to him in the Easter dive of death and resurrection.

In Baptism at Jordan Jesus becomes solidarity with us so that we are all presented to the Father as children in the Son, while still recognizing us in need of conversion and - important thing - all, through the humanity of Jesus, We receive that set of the Holy Spirit that allows us to face the temptations of the evil one and to overcome them, which represents, For Christians the first important passage of the baptismal journey, in conversion and free choice.

In fact, the Holy Spirit in the desert He puts the humanity of Christ in the face of evil so that he can fight him and choose in the freedom of the Son of remaining in obedience to the Father. In the same way the Holy Spirit acts in us, manifesting us the scandal of the mystery of iniquity that can only be won by remaining in obedience to God, rooted in his word: "It is written, it was said " (cf.. LC 4,4. 8.12). It is no longer time for man, how it happened to the progenitors in Eden, to hide because of the sin or the disconcerting devastation that it causes in life, But through the Spirit he is called to act, to challenge the sword (cf.. Ef 6,17) and to give war to the evil one who has already been rejected in the humanity of Christ.

Lent becomes in this way, year by year, an ever greater and different path of spiritual awareness. A journey of listening to the inner master - the Holy Spirit - who encourages the man to "see", indeed we could say, to experience him: "Come on, You see the works of the Lord " (cf.. Shall 46, 9). And what are the works that the Holy Spirit, as a lord, carry out? These are those same works that we see realized in the earthly life of Jesus and that he proposes to those who intend to follow him: Venection and contemplation of the Father, annihilation of oneself and a gift of themselves to men.

Lent lends itself to this triple dynamic so that, Under the careful guidance of the Holy Spirit, There is no more space for disordered emotion or apocalyptic revelations, Since everything leads to a conformation of one's life to that of Christ that only the Spirit is able to operate in fullness in man. Let's see how this happens, through three movements.

The first movement corresponds to an ascense motion, Which means fixing the gaze not on one's own misery as a sinner, but lift his eyes to God who is Father. This allows us to contemplate his redemptive work in the Son Jesus: "This is God's work: believe in him whom he sent " (cf.. GV 6, 29). The center of existence, What gives meaning and firm hope to the often difficult path of man's life is faith in Jesus, the encounter with Christ. It is not a question of following an idea, a project, but to meet Jesus as a living person, to let himself be fully involved by him and his Gospel. This is why Jesus invites us not to stop at a purely human plan, But to open up to the horizon of God, that of faith. He demands this only work: welcome God's plan, that is, "believe in the one he sent" (cf. Benedict XVI, Angelus, Castel Gandolfo, 5 August 2012).

The second movement is an abysmal motion, It coincides with the reality of the cross. It means bringing that yoke that makes us small, who daily reduces our self and allows us to give up the domain on brother and things, scanning the selfish obsession with possession, putting their own person in the service, that is, turning preferably to those who have no possibility of reciprocating (cf.. LC 14,13-14).

The third movement is a horizontal motion, It coincides with that "until the end" of GV 13,1, that Jesus first acts in the Upper Cenacle with the Apostles, But then he fully realizes for everyone on Calvary. There Jesus makes men full of himself to men. Just as the Holy Spirit had pushed him into the desert, almost out of salvific necessity, Now he makes him go up the lounge of the ordeal where the last will take place, definitive and necessary combat against the evil one; While in the meantime he proposes his alternative messianicity that contradicts his father's design: «You who destroy the temple and reconstruct it in three days, save yourself! If you are the son of God, get off the cross!» (cf.. Mt 27,40); “The people were seeing, The leaders instead shoed it by saying: “He saved the others, except himself, If it is the Christ of God, His elected ". The soldiers also shine it, and they approached him to give him some vinegar, and they said: “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself "" (cf.. LC 23,35-37). This horizontal motion does not primarily have a philanthropic or solidarity meaning as it could be hastily understood, But it is a lucid request for consummation of your heart for the other. It is the definitive fulfillment that even reaches the forgiveness of the enemies. There the demonic temptation cannot arrive, There is only and only the work of the Holy Spirit who transforms the intimate of man to the consumption for the other, Just as Christ did. The Finished of Christ is the beginning of each Charis-Matic Operation of the Christian and the Church; For this reason, love finds its source in the third person of the Trinity who takes stay in the creature permanently (cf.. RM 8,9).

To conclude, On the Lenten journey we come from the desert to Calvary, and from this place of consummation of the heart of Christ for men, We move on to that consumption charis-matica which is a mission and task for the life of the Church. Emphasizing those three movements on remember, to which man, following Christ, Try to conform by vocation, We have outlined a spiritual path and a missionary journey, announcement, of Christian and baptismal authenticity, For those who have received the effusion of the Holy Spirit and who live Christian life under the sign of Pentecost. This has become true for Christians immediately, just after death, The resurrection and ascension to the sky of Christ. The Holy Spirit praises magnanimity on the whole Church Doni and Carismi, As the Gospel of Marco and the Pauline letters testify. The same book of the acts of the apostles is a pneumatological symphony of the work of the spirit in the life of the Church of the origins, which will then continue in the following centuries in which, drugs, We will witness the birth of unexpected gifts: the martyrdom, The holiness of the anachoretes, The doctrine of the great doctors, ecclesial charity, sacramental and praying life; they let the signing of the Holy Spirit glimpse everywhere as an inner teacher. Lent is a path in the company of the Holy Spirit, It is the realization of that dream of becoming similar to God obtained not in disobedience and with sin, as for the progenitors, but in the mediation of Christ: He is the only one who can lead the man to his father.

Sanluri, 16 April 2025

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